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The principal denied my request to attend an early-reading training that I know will help my kiddos, and when I offered to use my own money to register, he nixed even that. If I didn’t already know he was out of the building today, I’d be heading to his office now to blast him.
Why the hell can’t I use my own resources to do something that’ll benefit my job performance? He didn’t offer an explanation, because he almost certainly doesn’t have one. The guy is a total douche canoe. Short man’s syndrome combined with an overinflated, and completely unwarranted, ego. He’s the worst boss I’ve ever had in my life.
I can deal, usually. But not when the kids have to suffer for it.
“You look like you can use a drink.”
Rob Slater stands in my open door as I clean up my desk. A phys ed teacher, he’s typically not on the second floor so far away from the gym.
“I could,” I admit.
“Happy hour?”
It’s been ages since I participated in the teachers’ long-standing Friday afternoon tradition. I go in waves, hitting Bridgewater Brewing Company every week at times and then not again for months. Since Enzo, I haven’t been once.
“Yeah, maybe . . .”
Rob nods toward the door. “No maybes. Let’s go, Atwood.”
“Now?”
Although the day is over, most people grade some papers or pack up for the weekend rather than bolting for the door.
“Yes, now.”
I’ve known Rob my whole life. Even dated him once in sixth grade, although it was the kind of “dating” that entailed telling a lot of people about it and never actually doing anything together outside of school. He’s a real ballbuster, and I’ve always wondered how his girlfriend puts up with him.
“Fine.” I look down at my closed laptop. Screw it. “I’ll meet you there.”
Rob never did say what he was doing on the second floor, I realize later as I pull my scarf more tightly around my neck and head toward the car. It’s less than a ten-minute drive to the bar, and when I pull in, there’s only a few cars. One of the perks of being a teacher is an empty bar for happy hour. By the time the rest of the world gets out of work in an hour or so, we’ll have filled the entire corner of the tasting room floor.
“There she is.”
Rob’s already here.
“Angel?” he asks.
If someone drives to a bar alone, there’s a presumption that they’ll be drinking some sort of Angel product. Funny, just a few weeks ago that name wouldn’t have conjured visions of Enzo’s naked body straddling me, the muscles of his arms straining as he—
“Chari?”
Who needs a jacket when you have memories like that one? Suddenly hot, I take off my scarf and put it, along with my coat, on the back of the bar seat.
“Sure. Angel Pale,” I tell the bartender waiting for my drink order.
Rob already has a lager started, but he pays for mine as well.
“Thanks.”
We clink glasses.
“Cheers to another week in paradise,” he says. We both drink. Then he adds, “So who were you wanting to murder when I walked by your room?”
I look at him like,Really?We both know who drives everyone in that building crazy.
“What did he do now?”
I tell him my tale of woe, and Rob counters with one of his own. I’ve been so out of touch with the goings-on at school that I had no idea construction had started on the gym. It was supposed to wait until the summer, but much to Rob’s chagrin, the principal had the bright idea of moving Rob’s classes to the back of the library and breaking ground now. At the end of winter.
